China Vs India - Power sector

NYT points to the surge in capacity addition in power generation in China and its success in construction of more efficient, less polluting coal power plants, by mastering the technology ("ultra-supercritical" technology which uses extremely hot steam to achieve efficiency of upto 44% in the conversion of energy in coal into electricity) and driving down the cost.



The contrast with India's laboured effort at capacity addition could not have been starker. Even as China adds 80,000-100,000 MW every year, India's five year capacity addition during the eighth, ninth and tenth Five Year Plans was 16420 MW (projected 30540 MW), 19015 MW (40250 MW), and 19010 MW (41110 MW) respectively. Even the Eleventh Plan (2007-12) target of 78,577 MW looks too steep and is not expected to be reached. More on the reasons for the failure to achieve even these modest targets is discussed here. More comparison of India and China is available here.